Bob Willis, a member of the Classic and Specialist Car Club of Northern NSW, was approached by a company that supplies vehicles for films after placing an advertisement in Just Cars magazines to sell his 1924 blue Dodge.

Mr Willis said he advertised the Dodge Business roadster  in similar magazines six months ago under the assumption it was a unique model .

“I’d advertised it for sale at least six months previously and I put a very high price on it at the time because I thought it was unique,” he said. 

“As far as I know, it’s the only 1924 Dodge Business roadster with Haywire wheels in Australia.”

Mr Willis said he didn’t immediately realise the car was being looked at for use in the film.

“When they first rang me, I was a bit suspicious about who they were,” he said. 

“Once I knew I had to ask, ‘are you going to prang it?’ because there’s a car crash scene in the film and they said no, and that was a condition for the sale.”

Mr Willis said his car was selected after director Baz Luhrmann turned down another blue Dodge that had been sourced for the film. 

“I had to send a whole stack of photos and they blew them up and stuck them on a board for Baz Luhrmann to look at,” he said. “Once that was done, it progressed pretty quickly.” 

The roadster, driven by Tobey Maguire’s character Nick Carraway, was converted to a left-hand drive for the filming.

Mr Willis said he wouldn’t have imagined the car would be bought for use in the movie but he was satisfied it was in good hands. 

“The reason they bought it is that they wanted to own all the cars for the four main characters,” he said.

“It’s ended up probably quite a famous car.”

Another member of the car club, Rick Nelson was approached to lend two trucks to the film for use in background scenes.  Mr Nelson lent a 1924 International and a 1927 Chevrolet to Fox Studios for the film, which will appear in background scenes.